[Watford] What's your opinion on this blog?

[M Fernandes]

Alan, by gruelling, I take it you mean the video?

Alain, Steven is right, Python is popular, but what's refreshing to see, is
that Jessica obviously understands that that's a position that needs to be
maintained. Her 'call to arms' on dealing with Windows-based Python bugs
(which don't receive any attention comparatively) is definitely making sure
that the widest possible audience gets exposed to Python, and gets
involved. She asked each developer present at that keynote speech to attend
one of each of the event types she highlighted. This is vital to getting
them engaged and getting them to understand the issues which would put off
new entrants to programming. Even in business (IT aside) back office
functions going back to the coal face is vital for the long-term survival
of whatever business we're talking about.

There's no point denying it; Windows is the biggest IT ecosystem out there
at the moment; you need to make sure that your solution (in this case
Python) works on that ecosystem. Don't pay attention to that, and your
system dies.

It si this leadership which is lacking in many open source projects (Perl
is immensely powerful, but is dying). There are many instances where, with
the right leadership, open source could have made real in-roads into being
accepted, but, as Adrian also mentions, Linux was too busy navel gazing.
Microsoft even made a mistake with Windows 8, but Linux hasn't capitalised
on it one bit. If I'm wrong, please shout.

Alain, yes, you're right, if businesses contributed to a fund, it would
help the OS community no end. However, as I see it, in business' eyes, OS
has no quality and continuity, so the contributions don't materialise.  As
long as Linux stays on servers, users won't really know what it is. It
needs to move onto workstations in order to be accepted and gain acceptance
(this was how Wndows made it). I was staggered when I read the defence
mentioned in Adrian's article; it was so symptomatic of said navel gazing.
There also needs to be a re-addressing of what open source software means;
it's free of licencce, not free to use. That perception needs to be
corrected, first within businesses (Heartbleed should have been supported
by them as their risk mitigation) and also users.

Linux shouldn't be content with being everywhere by being used unknowingly.
It'll always be seen as second-best to Windows if it continues like that.

.....and breathe Mike. :-)


On 14 May 2014 18:06, Steven Acreman <sacreman at gmail.com> wrote:

> Python and Go are pretty popular at the moment.
>
>
> On 14 May 2014 18:04, Alan Secker <alansecker0 at gmail.com> wrote:
>
>> On 14/05/14 16:38, Alain Williams wrote:
>>
>>> On Wed, May 14, 2014 at 04:21:16PM +0100, M Fernandes wrote:
>>>
>>>> I think that the Heartbleed bug *has* set back the perception of quality
>>>> within the business world.  As has been pointed out before by some of
>>>> you,
>>>> Linux is everywhere, but, I do think that it has failed to break into
>>>> the
>>>> Business world (front-end, not back-end where ordinary users don't
>>>> touch it
>>>> and become familiar with it) because there isn't enough leadership.
>>>>  Adrian
>>>> Bridgwater makes a good point in his latest blog about fellow developers
>>>> needing to concentrate on their end-users, rather than fellow
>>>> developers;
>>>> the defence Adrian highlights is symptomatic of that attitude I think.
>>>>
>>>> http://www.computerweekly.com/blogs/open-source-insider/
>>>> 2014/04/why-heartbleed-did-not-harm-open-source.html
>>>>
>>>
>>> See below, basically they find that bug density is less in OSS than
>>> proprietary
>>> (0.59 vs 0.72) - not a big difference.
>>>
>>>      http://www.zdnet.com/coverity-finds-open-source-software-
>>> quality-better-than-proprietary-code-7000028514/
>>>
>>>  Now, contrast that with Jessica McKellar; she  shows leadership which
>>>> others need to reflect.  I can't help feeling that Python is in safe
>>>> hands
>>>> with her.
>>>>
>>>> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d1a4Jbjc-vU
>>>>
>>>
>>> 35 minutes ... too long to listen to today.
>>>
>>>
>>> What I think would really help would be if, somehow, we could pursuade
>>> all the
>>> businesses that use OSS to contribute to a bug squashing fund. I am not
>>> quite
>>> sure how we could manage that, but it would help. The trouble is that
>>> pursuading
>>> a company to donate even 1% of what they save would prob be quite a hard
>>> sell.
>>>
>>> Comments ?
>>>
>>>
>> I found it gruelling and learned very little, even though starting from
>> the NIL level. Oddly enough I had lunch with an old friend today and a
>> former developer. He was urging me to look at Python. I might.
>>
>>
>>
>>
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